Henry Buckle

Henry Thomas Buckle was born November 24, 1821. British philosopher and historian. Experienced great influence Comte ideas. Major works - unfinished two-volume "History of Civilization in England" (1857-1861). I attempted to apply to the history of the law of causality in the spirit of materialism, rejecting the corresponding hypothesis of predestination, supernatural intervention or domination of accidents and thus "raise the story on a par with other branches of knowledge." Particular attention is paid to the statistically significant components in the behavior of large masses of people. It found that "everything should be the result of a dual action: the action of external phenomena on the human spirit and the spirit of man to external events." Divide representation of geographical determinism, explaining the evolution of the peoples of the influence of landscape, climate, soil, diet, and even "the general form of nature." Distinguish landscapes conducive to the development of reason and logic operations (Europe), which predzadavali subordination of human nature and landscapes, exciting the imagination (the areas of occurrence of the oldest civilizations and the belt of the tropics), which contributed to the process of subordination of human nature. Food Buckle treated as a secondary factor, depending on the climate and soil, and the "soil is determined by the remuneration received for the result of labor, and the climate - energy and constancy of labor." The main factor in the development of historical thought intellectual progress and the accumulation of practical knowledge and skills of people. "The mental factor" interpreted as "the true engine" of social evolution, which "can be proven in two different ways: vo-pervyh, because if not moral principle driven civilization, it is attributed to this action is a mental one; and, vo-vtoryh, the fact that the mental start showing this ability all to bow, which is quite sufficient to explain the extraordinary progress made by Europe in the course of several centuries. " Buckle recognized the important role of boundless "human energy" in comparison with the limited nature of resources. Progress and scientific thoroughness Buckle made his work very popular (but only briefly - only in the third quarter of the 19th century.).

He died in 1862, infected with typhus, and not completing the work of his life.